Bitch
By Citronella on Friday, June 6 2008, 15:35 - Permalink
There's this professor.
I have never met her.
One of my lab mates is working with her. A few students I know had her as a teacher. And I haven't heard many good things about her. She is said to be arrogant, to often pause her classes to look up references on Google, to be plain mean. After an argument my lab mate had with her, she told him that she would make sure that he never has a first author publication in this particular field the project is on. (She will not, of course. But mainly because she does not have the means to, rather than because she does not have the will to. How could she? She just got tenure.)
She was a panelist today at a conference I did not attend.
So it is all very second hand, you see. But I trust the girlfriend who told me.
Someone asked a question about balancing an academic life with family. "Oh, this is not really possible, you know. Especially not if you want to be good at what you do. I am dedicated to academe. I don't really have a life besides academe, because when you really love something, you just do it. You don't need anything on the side," she said. (Not her exact words, obviously. But close enough.) No one said anything. I know my friend did not speak because she is afraid of this professor. I don't blame her. But the other faculty members? The visitors? Not a fucking word.
It is because of such people that it is so hard to balance academe and personal life. Because some holier-than-thou, superior feeling asses impose their righteous (and downright insane) choices of life upon the rest of us. And that we let them do it, because we're insecure at heart.
Comments
not righteous. feminist.
That does sound pretty rotten, but perhaps she is the way she is because of what she had to do to succeed in academia. Some mean people are simply a product of the system....
coffeesnob > No. She clearly does not have time to devote to burning bras and bashing men as a whole.
Mad Hatter > Of course, I am not imagining that she got this idea in her head by herself. And it makes sense to persuade yourself that what you are told to do is what you want to do. But still, it is shocking. More so is the fact that nobody in the room responded to that...